The Volvo Question. And the Future of Design

Brilliant usability, flawless range, clever engineering. But if you swap the badge, does it still feel like a Volvo?

Design: More Than a Pretty Face

There’s a persistent myth in boardrooms and brainstorms alike: design is styling. A lick of paint, a clever font, perhaps a gradient if you’re feeling adventurous. But styling is merely the garnish, not the meal. If design were only about aesthetics, we’d leave it to artists—those noble souls who create for themselves or a niche audience, not for the messy, demanding masses. Designers, on the other hand, live in the real world. They wrestle with empathy, research, and the awkward truth that products must work for everyone, not just the gallery crowd.

The Process Behind the Curtain

Design is not a divine spark; it’s a process. A series of steps—sometimes elegant, often iterative—that increase the odds of creating something useful, usable, and yes, beautiful. Frameworks like Design Thinking (a term that sounds suspiciously like jargon until you realize it’s just structured common sense) guide teams through discovery, ideation, and prototyping. It’s less about genius and more about reducing risk. Because nothing says “strategic failure” quite like launching a product nobody wants.

The Real Game: Creating Preference

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: design is not neutral. It’s a weapon in the battle for consumer preference. The goal? Make your product the obvious choice, so obvious it feels inevitable. Within that ambition lies a spectrum of strategies. Do you cast the widest net, appealing to as many as possible? Or do you embrace the “hate it or love it” approach—polarizing, provocative, unforgettable? Both have their merits. One builds consensus; the other builds cults.

Case in Point: Electric Cars

Consider the electric vehicle. At first glance, it’s a triumph of engineering. But beneath the sleek silhouette lies a design dilemma: range anxiety. For many buyers, the question isn’t whether the car looks good—it’s whether it can handle that annual pilgrimage to Tuscany without a three-hour charging interlude in a parking lot outside Lyon. Enter the wind tunnel. The more aerodynamic the model, the greater the range. Suddenly, that swooping roofline isn’t just a stylistic flourish; it’s a promise of freedom. Because a car, at its core, is not about transport—it’s about autonomy. The ability to go where you please, when you please, without the tyranny of timetables and train strikes.

Efficiency: The Eternal Pursuit

Of course, design doesn’t stop at the showroom. It marches straight into the factory. Henry Ford understood this better than anyone when he quipped about the Model T: “You can have it in any colour you like, as long as it’s black.”Limiting choice was not an aesthetic decision; it was an efficiency masterstroke. Fast-forward a century and the principle still applies—albeit with a digital twist.

Take the modern car interior. Physical buttons are giving way to touchscreens, not because designers have suddenly fallen out of love with tactile feedback, but because screens are infinitely adaptable. Add a new function? No need to retool the dashboard—just push an update. Contrast that with the nightmare of redesigning a physical control panel mid-production. Flexibility wins.

Yet here’s the paradox: while manufacturing strives for uniformity, design trends lean toward what we might call “less of more”—smaller runs, greater variety. Automation and CAD (Computer-Aided Design) have shrunk the steps between concept and production, making bespoke not only possible but profitable. The result? A tension between the industrial dream of efficiency and the design ambition of individuality. And that tension, dear reader, is where the magic happens.

The Volvo Question

Enter the new Volvo EX60—a brilliant piece of engineering and, on paper, a triumph of design. Usability? Outstanding. Range? Competitive. Clever packaging? Absolutely. But here’s the uncomfortable question: will it really be recognizable as a Volvo? Strip away the logo and those signature headlight units, and what remains? A silhouette that could just as easily belong to one of the many Chinese contenders flooding the market. The once-iconic shoulder line—the proud Scandinavian gesture that gave Volvos their unmistakable stance—has softened into something more… generic. Yes, it’s elegant. Yes, it’s aerodynamic. But is it Volvo? Or is it simply another well-executed form in a sea of competent anonymity?

And here’s the litmus test every brand should fear: if you swap the badge for another, does the design still feel authentic? Does it whisper the brand’s story without shouting its name? For Volvo, that answer should be an emphatic yes. Right now, it feels more like a hesitant maybe.

Would I still consider the EX60 as my next car? Absolutely. And that says everything. Performance, usability, and cleverness can win the day—even when character takes a back seat. But it leaves us with a lingering question: in the race for efficiency and range, how much identity are we willing to sacrifice?

So, What’s the Point?

Design is not a cosmetic layer applied at the eleventh hour. It’s a strategic discipline that shapes perception, solves problems, and (when done well!) creates desire so strong it feels like destiny. Ignore that, and you’re not just missing the point; you’re missing the market and your not playing to win the game.